If it passes the final approval stages with DESE this summer, students will soon be able to take a brand-new Public Safety CTE pathway.

Thanks to law teacher Carolyn MacWilliam, the public safety CTE pathway is looking for approval to join the roster, and to get funding for new additions such as the classroom being constructed to look more like a courthouse.

The public safety CTE pathway would branch out further than the law pathway to cover more career choices.

“It’s for people that not only want to go into law, but people that want to go into law enforcement, like a police officer, or the fire department, or EMT,” MacWilliam said. “This is going to be a CTE program, so that even we can have different certifications that you can get when you graduate. So you can do this pathway and then go directly into a job for dispatch.”

One of the biggest and most exciting changes happening to accomodate the pathroom is that MacWilliam’s classroom is currently undergoing construction to look more like a courthouse.

“I think it gives [the classroom] a realistic look. I remember coming out of law school, I was in class,” law teacher Robert LeGrow said. “You’re in a classroom, but you don’t really set foot inside of a court. So they do get a sense of reality and the practical nature of what a court looks like.”

Students can also see the benefits of this new construction.

“I think it’s good because now we can use [the courthouse] for our debates and it’ll be more structured than just grouping up desks,” sophomore Shashi Pokhrel said.

The law teachers also hope for funding for other additions towards the new pathway.

“I think that I’d like to see if we can get our kids some internships at places that have to do with any aspect of the legal system,” Legrow said.

“There’s been a lot of people in the building, and then the central administration have been working really hard to make this work,” MacWilliam said. “So hopefully it gets approved.”